


Mixed Feelings

by bronwins



Category: L.A. Noire
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-25
Updated: 2013-01-25
Packaged: 2017-11-26 20:40:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/654200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bronwins/pseuds/bronwins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It's a dirty city. You wade in with high boots, but you still don't come out clean." Kelso and Bekowsky discuss the death of a colleague.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mixed Feelings

“It’s a dirty city. You wade in with high boots, but you still don’t come out clean.” The two men shared a bench at the Central Garden and ate lunch. It was a normal Thursday afternoon that, somehow, had a tinge of wrongness to it. As though the air simply wasn't quite breathable.

“Got that right.”

“What’ll happen to Elsa?” Kelso asked.

“Dunno.”

“Maybe I should-”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, now.”

“Sure, sure.”

“Girl like that has trouble following her like a puppy dog.”

“I said alright, didn’t I? Jesus, Bekowsky, it’s like dealing with my damn mother.”

“S’cuse me for trying to help you.”

They were quiet with one another for awhile. Bekowsky ate with a dark eye cast askance-as though the sandwich gripped mannishly in his left hand was particularly suspicious.

“What’d the old lady make you?”

“Egg salad. And she’s not my old lady-sayin’ that only gives her ideas.” Kelso laughed thinly. The sound seemed to reverberate against the concrete walls of the District Attorney’s office like the sound of rushing water. Bekowsky sipped at watery coffee in a paper cup.

“Rusty retired, I hear.”

“Yeah. I got a new guy now. Some kid fresh out of traffic. What a mess.”

“What’s he like?”

Bekowsky put what was left of the sandwich in its wrappings.

“Young guy. Pretty okay. Knight on a white horse-the usual.”

“Even in L.A. Who’d have thunk.” Kelso stretched, and took a cigarette from the tin case in his breast pocket. Bekowsky fumbled in his clothes-still a garish dresser, as ever he was-for a lighter. For a moment, as the one lit the cigarette of the other, they exchanged glances-blue and brown in what could’ve easily been mistaken for a fight to the death. Kelso looked away first.

“I...hear you’re the favorite for captaincy next year, Bekowsky.”

“Can I ask you something, Jack?”

“No law against it.” Kelso said.

“You ever miss Cole?”

There was no straight answer, and too, no _correct_ answer to the question.

“Some.”

All the hatred he’d ever felt for Phelps was nothing compared to the terrible, sickening guilt that washed over him like a river-a dank wave of sewage that spattered him with piss and shit that couldn’t wash away. Phelps died friendless, and left behind about a thousand dollars and a hundred thousand headaches that had now somehow fallen into Kelso’s lap. A problem was Elsa-a woman he knew he could love, but could never bring himself to encroach upon (as though Cole would come back from the dead to protect his woman). She was the kind of woman who was worth a million dollars, and was consequently the favorite of every two-bit cop and criminal in Los Angeles. And then there was the delicious, disgusting little bit of irony that giggled and taunted him with sadistic pleasure-the fountain of guilt. He couldn’t count how many times he’d wished he’d killed Phelps in Okinawa. Now that he was dead, Kelso bitterly regretted praying to the Archangel Michael to strike him down him-though he supposed, since he had ceased to attend services altogether, the angel surely couldn’t have taken his requests very seriously.

“Can I ask you something else?”

“I can see why they made you head detective.”

Bekowsky chewed his lower lip-he did it on poker night, and when he did, Kelso always managed to beat him. He wondered if Bekowsky ever played poker with Phelps.

“How long’s it been since you slept?”

Kelso felt the exhaustion tug at him the moment the detective mentioned sleep. If he was being completely honest, he wasn’t sure. He wasn’t really keeping track. Most days he’d catch a few hours in his car by the D.A’s office, or parked a few houses down from where Phelps and his family used to live. But more often than not, the bed at home was left untouched, and the scotch heavily depleted. Sometimes, when he was very drunk, Kelso managed what most could charitably call a nap. But the short stints of time when his eyes briefly fluttered closed were plagued with nightmares-Sugar Loaf and Elsa; Phelps holding her hand and blowing his brains out in the hospital that became a graveyard-Marie, who was always underfed and unwashed, throwing her clothing into a lake and diving in...

Kelso would wake from these dreams soaked in sweat and crying, and no amount of scotch or cigarettes, or women with more beauty than morals would soothe the terror.

“It’s been awhile.”

“Yeah, me too.”


End file.
